Further Reading

Ars previously mentioned Norris Coin in a story about the ongoing dispute over Coinye, the Kanye West-inspired altcoin. We attempted to contact Norris’ representatives for that piece, but they did not respond until Tuesday.

“Thank you for bringing to our attention the ‘Norris Coin,’” Jeff Duclos, Norris’ publicist, wrote in an e-mail to Ars. “This is a completely unauthorized use of Mr. Norris' name and likeness. There is no affiliation. His legal representatives have now intervened and this operation has been shut down. The operators received a Notice of Infringement from Mr. Norris' attorney. Some communication followed."

Chuck Norris doesn’t give a fuck about the 10 KnC ASIC miners you stockpile in your parent’s basement. He’s gonna roundhouse kick you in the face the next time you go buy your XXL Grilled Stuft Burritos from Taco Bell.

Chuck Norris doesn't need a computer array to mine bit coins. Chuck Norris can divide by zero, in his head.

5198 posts | registered Jun 7, 2010

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is due out in May 2018 from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

So is this the new fad now, celebrity-inspired cryptocurrencies? I suppose naming your new currency after a movie star or recording artist is one way to get attention, but in this case clearly violating trademark.

It's interesting, one of the biggest problems that economics professors have with Bitcoin is that it's not as scarce as people say it is because you can simply copy the source code and create your own altcoin. That is true, and as you can see, that is what many people have done.

The value of Bitcoin, and truly any cryptocurrency, is really what people will pay for it. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bubble or commodity as many detractors also say, but just that the idea is just as important the physical implementation. Right now, the idea is BTC and LTC rule the roost, and the other altcoins out there don't get nearly as much attention whether it's from news outlets, ticker sites, major exchanges, or cryptocurrency supporters.

The ability to create a Bitcoin clone does not threaten the value of established cryptocurrencies, but creating an altcoin that people want does. So far, Dogecoin, Coinye and Norris Coin have failed to do that.

Yeah! How dare a tech site run an article about a crypto-currency that ran afowl of a legal team?

Oh, wait, that's why.

You have two options here:

a) think of it as the tech equivalent to a human interest story

b) realize from the article title that it's not a news story you want to see and only waste 5 seconds reading the title, rather than reading the article, jumping to the comments section, and leaving a pointless comment.

Barrens chat was worse than this. There's still intelligent discussion further up the thread. Back in 2006, we could count on never seeing that, except when some Alliance party was heading to RFD/RFK.

The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!What do you mean?The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!

So is this the new fad now, celebrity-inspired cryptocurrencies? I suppose naming your new currency after a movie star or recording artist is one way to get attention, but in this case clearly violating trademark.

Or in every case violating trademark until you pretend you were REALLY violating some other groups' copyrighted parody material.

This is not news and no one would give a fuck if Chuck Norris wasn't attached. Cryptocurrency tries to use Chuck Norris' name and image to sell itself. Receives an inevitable C&D.

It's like predicting the fucking phases of the moon. Or rather, reporting them as news.

Except its not because its chuck norris, Ars posted about KanyeCoin as well

There is nothing stopping 10 other people from launching their own Norris Coins tomorrow. The whole idea that anyone can make their own crapcoin, name it something stupid and borderline illegal and push it out doesn't seem to be holding up. All of these "altcoins" are exact clones of Litecoin and don't add anything. Even the most popular one, the Doge Coin isn't worth much and it's decreasing in value.

Barrens chat was worse than this. There's still intelligent discussion further up the thread. Back in 2006, we could count on never seeing that, except when some Alliance party was heading to RFD/RFK.

The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!What do you mean?The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!The Crossroads is under attack!

So is this the new fad now, celebrity-inspired cryptocurrencies? I suppose naming your new currency after a movie star or recording artist is one way to get attention, but in this case clearly violating trademark.

Or in every case violating trademark until you pretend you were REALLY violating some other groups' copyrighted parody material.

This is not news and no one would give a fuck if Chuck Norris wasn't attached. Cryptocurrency tries to use Chuck Norris' name and image to sell itself. Receives an inevitable C&D.

It's like predicting the fucking phases of the moon. Or rather, reporting them as news.

Except its not because its chuck norris, Ars posted about KanyeCoin as well

The post about CoinYe managed to point out that they countered Kanye's inevitable C&D due to unlicensed usage of his name and likeness with a "Nuh uh, we are ACTUALLY violating South Park Studio's copyrighted Kanye parody." So it's kind of on-going. This, however, is just "[Idiots] use Chuck Norris' name and likeness unlicensed, shut down in face of C&D. End of story." No fucking shit. There is nothing to say unless they plan to fight the C&D somehow, like pretend they are really ripping someone else off.

Maybe if they had reported on the NorrisCoin before the obviously incoming C&D, like they also did with CoinYe, you might have a point. But they didn't. So it's just an excuse to make Chuck Norris jokes in the heading.

We're going about this all wrong. We keep discussing this celebrities who don't want their name associated with a cryptocurrency.

What we really should focus on is finding one who does.

Might I recommend Bruce Campbell. We can call it 'Ashcoin', and mining for Ashcoin can be renamed to 'swallowing your soul'. Every time a new cryptochain is unlocked, all it takes is a twitter announcement of 'hail to the king baby' to claim.

If not Bruce Cambell, then I'd recommend seeing if we can't use this to get Digital Underground back into the public eye. If any band has the perfect name to be involved in bitcoins, it's the Underground.

We're going about this all wrong. We keep discussing this celebrities who don't want their name associated with a cryptocurrency.

What we really should focus on is finding one who does.

Might I recommend Bruce Campbell. We can call it 'Ashcoin', and mining for Ashcoin can be renamed to 'swallowing your soul'. Every time a new cryptochain is unlocked, all it takes is a twitter announcement of 'hail to the king baby' to claim.

If not Bruce Cambell, then I'd recommend seeing if we can't use this to get Digital Underground back into the public eye. If any band has the perfect name to be involved in bitcoins, it's the Underground.

So is this the new fad now, celebrity-inspired cryptocurrencies? I suppose naming your new currency after a movie star or recording artist is one way to get attention, but in this case clearly violating trademark.

Or in every case violating trademark until you pretend you were REALLY violating some other groups' copyrighted parody material.

This is not news and no one would give a fuck if Chuck Norris wasn't attached. Cryptocurrency tries to use Chuck Norris' name and image to sell itself. Receives an inevitable C&D.

It's like predicting the fucking phases of the moon. Or rather, reporting them as news.

Except its not because its chuck norris, Ars posted about KanyeCoin as well

The post about CoinYe managed to point out that they countered Kanye's inevitable C&D due to unlicensed usage of his name and likeness with a "Nuh uh, we are ACTUALLY violating South Park Studio's copyrighted Kanye parody." So it's kind of on-going. This, however, is just "[Idiots] use Chuck Norris' name and likeness unlicensed, shut down in face of C&D. End of story." No fucking shit. There is nothing to say unless they plan to fight the C&D somehow, like pretend they are really ripping someone else off.

Maybe if they had reported on the NorrisCoin before the obviously incoming C&D, like they also did with CoinYe, you might have a point. But they didn't. So it's just an excuse to make Chuck Norris jokes in the heading.

If Coinye doesn’t work, there’s always Norris Coin, which is set to launch on January 14, 2014. Representatives of Chuck Norris did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

They even mention it in THIS story, that they talked to Chuck Norris's Representatives.

Quote:

Ars previously mentioned Norris Coin in a story about the ongoing dispute over Coinye, the Kanye West-inspired altcoin. We attempted to contact Norris’ representatives for that piece, but they did not respond until Tuesday.

So is this the new fad now, celebrity-inspired cryptocurrencies? I suppose naming your new currency after a movie star or recording artist is one way to get attention, but in this case clearly violating trademark.

Or in every case violating trademark until you pretend you were REALLY violating some other groups' copyrighted parody material.

This is not news and no one would give a fuck if Chuck Norris wasn't attached. Cryptocurrency tries to use Chuck Norris' name and image to sell itself. Receives an inevitable C&D.

It's like predicting the fucking phases of the moon. Or rather, reporting them as news.

Except its not because its chuck norris, Ars posted about KanyeCoin as well

The post about CoinYe managed to point out that they countered Kanye's inevitable C&D due to unlicensed usage of his name and likeness with a "Nuh uh, we are ACTUALLY violating South Park Studio's copyrighted Kanye parody." So it's kind of on-going. This, however, is just "[Idiots] use Chuck Norris' name and likeness unlicensed, shut down in face of C&D. End of story." No fucking shit. There is nothing to say unless they plan to fight the C&D somehow, like pretend they are really ripping someone else off.

Maybe if they had reported on the NorrisCoin before the obviously incoming C&D, like they also did with CoinYe, you might have a point. But they didn't. So it's just an excuse to make Chuck Norris jokes in the heading.

If Coinye doesn’t work, there’s always Norris Coin, which is set to launch on January 14, 2014. Representatives of Chuck Norris did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

They even mention it in THIS story, that they talked to Chuck Norris's Representatives.

Quote:

Ars previously mentioned Norris Coin in a story about the ongoing dispute over Coinye, the Kanye West-inspired altcoin. We attempted to contact Norris’ representatives for that piece, but they did not respond until Tuesday.

Good, now maybe they can have an article about how cryptocurrencies using a celebrity's name and likeness without license is going to get C&D'd into oblivion. And how this should surprise literally no one.

The value of Bitcoin, and truly any cryptocurrency, is really what people will pay for it. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bubble or commodity as many detractors also say, but just that the idea is just as important the physical implementation. Right now, the idea is BTC and LTC rule the roost, and the other altcoins out there don't get nearly as much attention whether it's from news outlets, ticker sites, major exchanges, or cryptocurrency supporters.

You seem to think that the fact that some people say there's a BTC bubble and some people say BTC behaves like a commodity as the same thing. Both are reasons it has greater fluctuations than established currencies, and also reasons that it doesn't make an effective store of value (necessary for a good currency), but they're in no way the same thing, and in the case of it acting like a commodity (which it does) aren't necessarily bad things.